Early Music Christmas: Ein Kind ist uns geboren! Saturday, December 16, 8PM & Sunday, December 17, 3PM Bachgrounder lecture 35 minutes before each performance Sonoma Bach Choir · Live Oak Baroque Orchestra Directed by Robert Worth and Amanda McFadden Schroeder Hall, Green Music Center Rohnert Park
Sonoma Bach presented its first Early Music Christmas in 2012; each year since, we have offered a fresh take on this venerable tradition. For our 12th annual EMC, we call upon the great Heinrich Schütz (1585–1672), one of our all-time favorite composers, and his Historia der Geburt Jesu Christi, a wondrous telling of the Christmas tale first performed in Dresden in 1660. The setting calls for a rich ensemble, complete with choir, vocal soloists, and a colorful orchestra including cornetti and sackbuts. We’ll augment Schütz’s telling of the story with additional works from his milieu, extending the narrative back to include the Annunciation and the Visitation, and forward to include a very special peroration.
Susan and Neil Silverman Photography
The Sonoma Bach Choir is a group of about 50 gifted singers drawn from throughout Sonoma County. The Sonoma Bach Choir specializes in the music of the Baroque period, with special emphasis on Johann Sebastian Bach; members and audiences alike thrill to the constant inventiveness and incredible degree of feeling in Bach's music.
Live Oak Baroque Orchestra is Sonoma Bach’s resident instrumental ensemble. Led by Baroque violin sensations Elizabeth Blumenstock and Aaron Westman, LOBO brings sumptuous tone and breathtaking flair to the one-on-a-part string-band repertoire of the 17th Century. Experience Baroque music at its finest—passionately performed by some of the country’s finest and most charismatic period instrumentalists, right here in Sonoma County.
